How to find the best non-crowded services at the least congested times?

[tornado]

Probably most would agree that a punctual, smooth-running journey with low occupancy is always the most plesant way to travel.

If you had the choice of making a trip any time of day, any day of the week, what are some good tips to find those services? Here are a few guesses of mine:

• The cheapest advance tickets are for the least-occupied services
• Arriving into the "throat" of main city terminiuses is less congested 9.30am-4pm, and after 7pm
• If a TOC has added a few more stops into an off-peak service (e.g. late evening) it's probably to try and get more passengers due to low demand
• Avoid Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays if possible

Are these accurate?

My main motivation is Glasgow-Lon WCML (or even ECML) trips, but I'm sure passenger behaviour is similar on many routes.

 

[Roast Veg]

It's often well to find services that are unlikely to appear in jorney planners. Slow long distance services (such as the MML servcies that make calls en-route to Leicester from St Pancras) are less likely to appear as they typically result in a longer journey time. You can also make use of alternative routings where possible and take a slower but often more comfortable journey.

Another thing to consider is cities or towns with multiple stations. Anecdotally, journey planners are unlikely to deposit you at a different station than the one you're departing from on a return itinerary. It's often better to look at each leg separately to find both the best deal and the quietest trains.

 

[30907]

Probably most would agree that a punctual, smooth-running journey with low occupancy is always the most plesant way to travel.

If you had the choice of making a trip any time of day, any day of the week, what are some good tips to find those services? Here are a few guesses of mine:

• The cheapest advance tickets are for the least-occupied services

Probably

• Arriving into the "throat" of main city terminiuses is less congested 9.30am-4pm, and after 7pm

Was perhaps true pre Covid, but 0930-1100 is pretty busy too

• If a TOC has added a few more stops into an off-peak service (e.g. late evening) it's probably to try and get more passengers due to low demand

Or to reduce the number of trains it runs and still provide a service.

• Avoid Fridays, Sundays, and Mondays if possible

And Saturdays ATM Thursday evening was getting busy pre-Covid, while business and commuter traffic is definitely less on Fridays! Hence no evening restrictions on Fridays on your route.

 

[tornado]

Thanks for all the tips.

On the matter of track congestion rather than passenger congestion, I'm still puzzled by the fact that services arriving into city terminuses (e.g. Euston) very late in the evening can still be delayed.

recenttraintimes.co.uk is very handy for looking at punctuality performance, and you can see that evening services can still be delayed, often in the final stretch. Surely major stations must be relatively empty after say 8pm?